A career to celebrate and at least a couple of important anniversaries to remember: the awarding of the Stella della Mole lifetime achievement award that the National Cinema Museum of Turin awarded as part of the Lovers Film Festivaldedicated to LGBTQI+ cinema, to the British actor Rupert Everett it was an opportunity to listen to him talk about his work, some of his films that have become legendary and his present. “Fortunately, sensitivity towards the issue of community rights has changed a lot in recent years,” he commented at the awards ceremony.
An important career award, which arrives on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of a milestone in homosexual-themed cinema, Another Country by Marek Kanievska (also author of Beyond all limits by Bret Easton Ellis), which was also your debut in cinema and which the festival presented again in cinemas.
I remember that set well, it was my first job in cinema and I was very lucky to be able to do it: I am still friends today with many of the people who worked on it. I had auditioned to be in the theater show written by the great author Julian Mitchell, which had an extraordinary success: at the beginning it seemed that Alan Parker was going to make a film of it, but then everything fell through and so we, who were carrying on the pièce we did it together. Mine was a really great role, it gave me so many opportunities when I was very young (and it gave them to many other actors of my generation, to Colin Firth who is with me in the film but also to Daniel Day Lewis and Kenneth Branagh who took our seat in the theater). Marek was magnificent as a director, unfortunately he only made four films and then he changed his life, now I think he windsurfs in China! I don’t know why he chose to talk about this topic, it’s his only homosexual theme, but he did a fantastic job, he spoke to so many people. I’m happy to be able to see it again, I haven’t done it since the 1980s: when you move the audience with a film like he managed to do, it’s important, it’s truly magical to have these possibilities in life.
Dellamorte Dellamore by Michele Soavi (1994)
Just looking at the cinema Another Country it seems that Tiziano Sclavi had an epiphany: his face had to be that of a new character he had just created, Dylan Dog. These days also marks the thirtieth anniversary of Of the Death of Love by Michele Soavi, also strongly linked to that legendary comic.
I love very much Of the Death of Love, it’s incredible, in my opinion it’s the best transposition of a comic ever made, much better even than Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy. I think Michele is a wonderful director, as is Gianni Romoli who wrote it with him. But the special effects were also incredible, all handcrafted by Sergio Stivaletti: it’s one of the films I’ve made that I liked 100%! It’s difficult to bring a story like that to the cinema, I would have liked to return to acting in that role. I was always very pleased to see my face on the character of Dylan Dog, even if I’m sorry I never met Sclavi in person.
Soavi’s film was also an opportunity to see her work in Italy: what links does it have with our cinema?
I’m very sad that I don’t work in Italian cinema more often: I loved the film’s script very much Finally dawn by Saverio Costanzo and I really wanted to do it, but the director ultimately chose Willem Dafoe for that role. I was very sorry.
The Lovers Film Festival tribute also includes the screening of the documentary she narrated The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron by Michael Wildman.
I have always had a fascination for Byron, I think he is the most romantic character in history! He was a forerunner of rock stars: his life in London was very exciting, today a guy like him would have problems, he would be written off because he had sex with his valet. By today’s standards he was certainly not a good person… Despite his appearance, his physical defects, his limp, it is amazing to think how he managed to be so attractive. Then Byron fell very much in love with a boy without being paid in the slightest, it was horrible but despite this he dedicated his last poem to him: it was a very sad end, his,
Another Country by Marek Kanievska (1984)
It is not his first time here at the Lovers Film Festival in Turin: he had already been a guest in 2018 to present his first, and so far only, work as a director, The Happy Prince – The last portrait of Oscar Wilde. Don’t like working behind the camera?
I have fond memories of that experience, it was only the second place it was shown. I was happy to bring it here because it is a festival full of friends: I like being a director, now I have a project and I am constantly looking for money to make it happen, I hope to do it as soon as possible but I don’t want to talk about it too much… it would be a bad idea, having to say one day that it hasn’t been filmed yet due to lack of funds wouldn’t be nice at all: I find it interesting to only talk about the films that are made. My biggest regret is that before I was 50 I didn’t feel ready to make my directorial debut, if I had been younger I could have done many more! It took me ten years to find the money for my first film, now I’ve been looking for five for this second: I’m already 65 and I’d like to be able to get the first take before I’m 70, I don’t want to be too old… say “Action! ” at that age it wouldn’t really be the best, I’d probably have a heart attack immediately after saying it.
Among the many fellow directors with whom you have worked in your career, who would you most willingly collaborate with again, if you could choose?
I would definitely love to work with Ridley Scott again, who I just toured with Napoleon: it was a wonderful experience, he makes huge films where everything happens very quickly, to keep up with him you have to be very reactive. But I also got along well with others, like Tim Burton, Andrej Konchalovsky, who is very nice, Paul Schrader… Unfortunately I had problems instead with Mike Newell, with whom I shot Dancing with a stranger: we hated each other, in the end we even told each other to go to hell. Afterwards he destroyed me by telling people that he couldn’t work with me (and he was kind of right), it was a real shame though because then he turned Four weddings and a funeral and I would have loved to do it.
After many questions about his past, a look at the present and the future: what relationship does he have with himself today and what is he working on?
I don’t like looking at myself in the mirror, when I was young I was obsessed with my image but at a certain point I said enough: I’m aware of it, I owe a lot of my career to my physical appearance. How do I spend my time now? I live with my mother in a small village in Wiltshire, England, she is 92 years old. I’m happy with it, even if the winters here are rainy and a bit sad, from November onwards everything here always floods. I work when I can, at the cinema or at the theatre, then I write, I go out with my dogs (their names are Pluto and Harry, they are a labrador and a spaniel), I read, I can say that I am happy. At 65 I’m no longer shy, at this age you’re too old to be. In this period I am on the set of “Wagner in Venice” by Daniel Graham, in Venice, about the last years of the great musician’s life.
Rupert Everett at the Lovers Film Festival
